Personally, the 2001 list below is the best in several years,
both before and after 2001.
Neurosis and
Hollenthon
are far ahead of the field and two of the
best albums of the last five years at least.
2001 is a marked improvement over 2000, as
several other very good albums (by
Finntroll,
Enslaved, and
Manilla Road,
among others)
barely missed making the list,
and would have made either 2000 or
2002's list.

Several surprises here.
Kreator had been faltering for years, but Violent Revolution
has proven a worthy comeback.
Opeth has had underground support for a little while now, and has
finally started to received more mainstream notice.
Finally, System Of A Down marks a rare nu-metal appearance, also
a surprise as nu-metal has typically not been the choice of BNR
readers.